was found. Also the photographs of the tiny kitchen showed three glasses that had been washed and stacked by the side of the sink. That’s not the kind of activity you do when you’ve got a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit and have ingested at least four types of prescription drugs.”
She could tell Mazzetti was considering her hypothesis. But he wasn’t convinced.
Lisa pointed at the photograph and added, “You can even see a chunk of a blue Ambien tablet on his shirt. He was lying down when he drank it. It dribbled into a puddle on his chest.”
Patty said, “C’mon, Tony, she’s got something here. That kid wasn’t the type to try and take his own life. He was too confident and cocky.”
Lisa liked Patty’s rational thought and realized the pretty detective didn’t hold any grudge about her dating Tony. She could see being friends with someone like Patty.
Mazzetti said, “Who would do something like that?”
Lisa said, “Who was with him the night before his body was found?”
Mazzetti shook his head. “No one knows.”
Patty said, “Based on everything we know about the fraternity in general and Connor in particular, it had to be a woman.”
Stallings took Grace’s advice and the sergeant’s coded signal as well as following his heart and sixteen years of police experience. Now he was looking at an ancient block building he remembered as a kid. It looked like an abandoned prison, but local history said it was housing for early migrant workers. When he was a boy, the building had been abandoned and run-down only to be renovated in the early 1990s on the cutting edge of the mini-boom that had gone on in the area. Now it was out of style again and just one of many cheap apartment buildings on the south side of the city.
It was four stories tall with about twenty units on each side and looked to be only about a third full. Stallings had to admit it was better maintained and considerably cleaner than most of the older apartment buildings in the area.
The sun had been down less than an hour, but the lack of outdoor lighting made it feel much later as Stallings approached the door marked OFFICE. He knocked once and rang the buzzer twice, then stepped away from the door, saying out loud in a low voice, “Is this the day that changes the rest of my life?”
The door to his right opened a crack and he realized it was the manager’s apartment attached to the office. A thin, elderly man in a flannel shirt peered through a crack with the chain still on the door. Once he got a look at Stallings, he unchained the door and said, “What can I do for you, officer?”
“How did you know I was a cop?”
“I’ve run this place sixteen years and anyone built like you, with no tattoos and who’s taken a bath in the last three days, is a cop. The only thing surprising is that at this time of the night it’s usually a uniformed patrolman looking for someone.”
The older man invited Stallings inside and his wife joined them as Stallings explained he was looking for two young people and laid out the photograph of Jeanie and Zach Halston.
The woman took a very close look and said, “That’s Kelly who lived up on the third floor couple of years ago. And the boy used to come around for a while.”
Stallings caught her tone and said, “You don’t sound like you thought much of him.”
“He was a little bit of an ass. Kelly liked him at first, but she had a thing for a guy named Gator. Nice young man but kinda confused. You know how women like to fix men.”
Stallings got all the information he could about Jeanie and Zach, then took the time to ask about Gator.
“I don’t know what the young man did for a living. He was tall, about six-one and lean.”
The man added, “He would’ve made an excellent baseball pitcher.”
The woman, recognizing what Stallings was looking for, added, “I don’t know where he lived, but he drove an older Chevy sedan. He had blue eyes and brown hair.”
Stallings said, “Did Jean, I mean Kelly, talk to you or tell you where she was headed once she moved out?”
The woman shook her head. “She was a polite girl and gave us two weeks’ notice but never said where she was moving. I had asked her about the one boy, Zach, and she just smiled and said he was a spoiled brat.”
Stallings had to smile at that. Some of his values had imprinted on her. He looked up at the old couple and said, “Can I look in the apartment?”
TWENTY-NINE
Patty was supposed to meet Ken, but she had called and canceled. After working so closely with Tony, even in the presence of his girlfriend, Lisa, she found herself thinking about her former boyfriend and was too distracted to listen to Ken babble about some reality TV show or how MDs thought they were so great. She wondered why he hadn’t become a general practitioner if he was so jealous of anyone with a medical degree. He had to tell everyone he met how podiatrists attended medical school and were “real” doctors. But his patients still called him “Doctor Ken.” That ate at him every day.
Instead of dinner with a petty, frustrated podiatrist, Patty found herself approaching the entrance to the Tau Upsilon fraternity clubhouse at the apartment complex that doubled as fraternity row. Earlier, she had called the house at UF and found out a few more details about the big Halloween party thrown every year in the Jacksonville chapter. The description sounded heavenly for college frat boys and was every parent’s nightmare.
She saw Bobby Hollis notice her from the lounger outside the front door. He sprang to his feet and turned toward the door, apparently to warn the brothers inside.
Patty simply called out in a very loud, clear voice, “Don’t.”
He responded like a dutiful dog and froze in place. Then he straightened and pulled his shirt, flicking potato chip crumbs onto the ground. He turned slowly and said, “Hello, Detective, nice to see you again.”
“Cut the shit. I don’t have time for it.”
The door to the fraternity house burst open and a young man stumbled out. She immediately recognized him as the one she had thumped out at the beach. He staggered to a stop, looked into her face, and let a goofy grin spread.
He ran his hand across his wild hair and said, “Well, well, what do we have here?”
Patty didn’t change her expression when she said, “You don’t have much of a memory.”
The kid said, “I never needed one until I saw someone as beautiful as you.”
Patty rolled her eyes but acknowledged, at least to herself, she liked the compliment and the kid was smooth.
From behind the drunken moron, Bobby Hollis said, “You remember Detective Levine, don’t you?”
The kid was shit-faced, but he remembered, and the color left his face. He backed away, then turned to one side and appeared ready to sprint if he had to.
This time Patty said, “Don’t. Sit.”
The kid froze, then sat on the lounger next to the front door.
Patty shoved Bobby Hollis next to the frightened fraternity brother. She looked at the drunken brother and said, “Just out of curiosity, what does a clueless dope like you major in?”
“Pre-law.”
“Why?”
“Why else? Money. Personal injury is where it’s at, along with decent litigation. Look at the tobacco settlement. Any lawyer involved is rich.”
Maybe the kid was right. For a drunken asshole, he made pretty good sense. She turned toward Bobby and said, “I need a few answers from you guys.”
“Like what?”
Patty leaned in closer to them to get her point across. “I want to hear all about your Halloween parties the last couple of years.”
The fraternity brothers looked at each other. Then Bobby said, “What do you want to know? It’s a lot of fun
